a) The logic of the insult
2The insult conveys a signifier, whose function is to touch a sensitive spot in the other – this is why we say that an insult is hurtful. However, a contrario, we can also argue, as the linguist Laurence Rosier does, that “an insult is healthy and hygienic, and part of a certain civic mindset, to the extent that, as we know, words can substitute for blows.” [1] A word instead of a blow. The problem is that, as we also know, words can sometimes cause much more pain than acts; furthermore, certain acts can be experienced themselves as insulting (the middle finger is a case in point).
What reasons can lead us to insult someone? We may feel offended, or treated inconsiderately. In this situation, insult can be a matter of impulse. Let us think only of “Get lost, you bloody moron,” Nicolas Sarkozy’s response to one of the visitors, who told him, as the former was pushing through a crowd at an agricultural fair, “Don’t touch me… you’ll soil me.” The insult here is part of a “reply” – the offended subject reacts to an insult (“you will soil me”) by another insult (“you bloody moron”).
3In French we speak of an injure – but what differentiates this term from the term insulte? [2] This is what the Rosier dictionary tells us: “Etymologists emphasize that initially both terms indicated harmful acts against others. To insult (insultare: to jump at) means to attack, to cause an injury and damage.” [3] The second term [insulte] therefore takes into account the effects of verbal aggression. In the past, the proper response to the offence was a duel; the point was to kill the insulter. As to the law, the Rosier tells us, it prefers the term injure: “Some explain this etymologically, since the Latin injuria is a term of Roman law designating an injustice, a violation, a term which itself is derived from jus, juris, from the law and justice.” [4] The term therefore exceeds the verbal register. As to our investigation, we will make no difference between injure and insulte and we will use the two terms interchangeably.
b) The insult and the joke
4In his work Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Freud argues that the joke allows us, primarily thanks to condensation, not to appear offensive by simply employing an allusion. [5] The insult is thus concealed and the subject, by virtue of his “higher moral position,” as Freud explains, [6] stands at one remove from the disparaging judgment and latent aggressiveness. We can therefore assume that a witty person has a strong Superego: in order to express his opinions, he has no choice but to use his wit, thus provoking laughter. While an insult shocks us, disguised as a joke it makes the listener laugh, and he can then even join in the mocking of the joke’s target. We can only conclude that the social bond established by the joker’s eloquence is partially based on an insult: this is no doubt the reason why Lacan says that the latter is the “basis of all human relationships.” [7] Moreover, in amorous or simply friendly relations we can often see that the protagonists sometimes use little insulting nicknames for each other. However, when the insult aims to hurt the partner, when it is uttered without being disguised, it can destroy the bond with the Other. Following this logic, Lacan is able to situate the insult as “the first and the last word of dialogue.” [8] Once an insult has been uttered, there is nothing to add: everything has already been said. In conclusion, we can say that the insult concentrates in itself two seemingly contradictory functions: it is the basis of the social bond and at the same time it works to undo it.
c) The Rat Man’s lesson
5We remember how the Rat Man, after having been punished by his father for some mischief he had done, got into a terrible rage and began insulting his parent:
But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: ‘You lamp! You towel! You plate!’ and so on. [9]
7Although they are simply names of objects and not yet insults, the words acquire a certain weight in the real. The word in a sense becomes an object, while the targeted Other is simultaneously reduced to being merely a thing: “[…] the point is,” Lacan tells us, “to bring the Other down to the rank of an object, and to destroy him.” [10]
8In a rarely cited text, Lacan returns to this episode:
The radical nature of metaphor is seen in the fit of rage, related by Freud, that his Ratman flew into as a child, when he had yet to be armed with foul language, […] his father being unsure whether to consider this criminal or genius on his son’s part. I myself intend not to lose sight here of the dimension of insult in which the metaphor originates. [11]
10Lacan’s reference to the radical nature of metaphor is based on the fact that a substitution has occurred: the names of objects, used by the Rat Man to designate his father, come to occupy the place of what ordinarily names him. Thus in some sense we have a new nomination. All the same, how can we argue that a metaphor originates from an insult? Let us put forth the hypothesis that because the signifier of the insult stands closest to the thing, it is here that the process of substitution originates. And let us remember here the aforementioned idea that the insult constitutes the basis of the social bond. [12]
11However, there are cases where this last property is inoperative and the injurious signifier cannot in any event enter the signifying chain – and for a particular reason, since it is itself the result of the latter’s radical breakdown. This is what we are going to examine now, by studying the specificity of the psychotic insult.
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